Once upon a time, Origin ran a contest in conjunction with the 10th anniversary of the Ultima series. The developer included a “black orb of the moons” (a piece of polished obsidian) in most boxed copies of Ultima VI, released in 1990. But in the case of ten lucky owners, they included a reproduction of an Ultima rune (I assume ten, anyway — it’s the number of runes pictured on the flier). Folks who found a rune in their box automatically won a spot as an NPC character in Ultima VII. Click on the image above to see the full flier describing the contest.

I’ve read about people winning the Ultima VII contest somewhere before, so I assume Origin went through with it. Did anybody out there get a rune or otherwise become an NPC in Ultima VII? By all means, let us know!

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